


An American Auror, a British Magizoologist and A Parisian Sewer Monster

by gnimmish



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 06:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16592630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnimmish/pseuds/gnimmish
Summary: Running administration for whatever one of Newt’s ridiculous exploits has brought an American auror carrying a shaking – and now occasionally hissing – cat basket into his path is not what Theseus considers to be a valuable use of his lunch hour.Theseus helps a certain American auror deliver a strange beast to his brother, encounters the distinct and horrifying possibility that his brother has somehow attracted a girlfriend. One shot.





	An American Auror, a British Magizoologist and A Parisian Sewer Monster

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place between the events of FBAWTFT and COG, and will obvs be rendered canon divergent by the events of COG. I just couldn't get this cute little idea for Theseus and Leta meeting Tina for the first time out of my head.

Theseus Scamander isn’t sure what he’s expecting when he’s told that there’s an American auror asking to see him – but it isn’t… this.

For one, he was most definitely expecting a man.

For two, man or not he wasn’t expecting someone carrying a cat basket.

The woman stood in the Ministry’s main reception is tall, thin and angular, shaped like an ungainly willow tree, awkward shoulders stooped under the heavy leather trench coat he knows to be standard issue for his American counterparts. Her dark hair is fraying out of an attempt at a fashionable bob and her pale little face would be pretty if her expression weren’t quite so severe.

She has the wide, gentle eyes of a newborn foal, but her mouth is set with all the consternation of an especially grumpy goat. And she’s clutching a wicker cat basket to her chest as if she’s worried it might spring out of her arms and escape – which, judging by the way it keeps shaking in her grip, is not unlikely.

“Ah…” Theseus pauses three feet in front of her, eyebrows raised. “You were asking for me?”

She blinks, the grumpy goat frown deepening as she shakes her head. “No. I wanted to see Mr Scamander.”

Her accent has a much heavier twang that he was expecting, too – most of the Americans he’s dealt with through MACUSA have a genteel, dislocated mid-west tone.

“That’s me, I’m afraid.”

She looks him up and down as if she’s very much considering hexing him.

“Theseus Scamander, at your service,” he adds, with a smile that usually wins round even the meanest secretaries in the Ministry.

She looks even grumpier. “Oh. _You’re_ Theseus.”

“Y-yes, I believe I just stated that – ”

“I’m looking for Newt.”

“Ah,” The cat basket. Of course she’s looking for his brother. “Yes, he’s around here somewhere – if you’ve brought him something you can leave it with me and I’ll – ”

“No, I think it’s safer if I deliver this in person,” the auror shakes her head firmly. “I can wait.”

“Very well,” Theseus runs a hand through his hair, “let me see if I can track him down – ah, Leta?”

Leta accompanied him up to reception some minutes ago – they’re meant to be going out for lunch – and has been observing the whole encounter from the sidelines with a look of growing amusement.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where Newt is?”

“In the postal department, compiling a report on the welfare of the owls,” Leta informs him, briskly.

The American casts Leta a look Theseus can’t read – evaluating, almost – before she nods. “Where’s that?”

“We’ll escort you,” Leta promptly strides off toward the nearest staircase, leaving both Theseus and the auror somewhat wrong-footed – lunch is apparently postponed?

Theseus frowns and follows Leta, the American woman in their wake, looking no more pleased than he feels. Running administration for whatever one of Newt’s ridiculous exploits has brought an American auror carrying a shaking – and now occasionally hissing – cat basket into his path is not what Theseus considers to be a valuable use of his lunch hour. He’s hungry. He wanted a sandwich and a cup of tea and the company of his fiancé, not to be running about the Ministry with a grumpy stranger and an unknown creature and – why is Leta looking smug, for heaven’s sake?

They stand in one of the lifts that moves unnervingly sideways (Theseus must confess he’s never been fond of them) in silence aside from the ominous noises from whatever is in that basket.

“Shh,” the American whispers to it – and a distinctly enraged _SHHHHH!_ is her reply from its confines.  

“What – is that, exactly?” Theseus raises an eyebrow.

“Nothing illegal,” the woman snaps, which Theseus does not find reassuring at all.

“So – you know Newt…?” He tries again, and Leta promptly jabs him in the ribs as if he’s being rude. He grunts, rubbing the spot she poked and casting her a wounded look.

Leta only pointedly raises her eyebrows – does she think him capable of legilimency all of a sudden? What is she trying to communicate to him?

 “It’s Goldstein, isn’t it?” Leta asks, smoothly, which gets her a sharp look from the auror. “Porpentina Goldstein?”

The woman seems almost reluctant to answer her. “Yes.”

“Newt’s mentioned you,” Leta smiles, and the American’s eyes widen, for the first time looking something other than entirely displeased to be there.

“He has?”

Not to Theseus he hasn’t – he glances from Leta to the Goldstein woman and back, perplexed.

“Of course – he speaks very highly of you.”

Porpentina Goldstein’s cheeks go very pink and she turns her gaze back to her cat basket. “Well, that’s nice of him.” She mumbles, and Leta looks positively ready to burst with some secret pleasure Theseus isn’t privy to.

What on earth is going on? Who is this woman?

He gets an answer when they walk out of the lift and almost directly into Newt, coming out of the little office the Ministry has leant him on this floor while he completes his work in the postal department.

He’s carrying a massive stack of parchment, all of which he drops with a start upon first sight of his American visitor, his mouth dropping open, his eyes comically wide.

“Tina!”

She jumps back, out of the way of his scattered parchment, tightening her grip on the cat basket – everything about her manner has shifted, softened, so abruptly that Theseus has to wonder if she’s just dropped some sort of glamour. “Hello, Newt.”

“What are you – ”

“I brought – ”

They both start at the same time – and then stop, simultaneously eager and abashed.

“You didn’t tell me you were…” Newt’s smile is almost awed, his voice has a note in it Theseus has never heard before.

“I took an assignment in Paris but no one outside of my department is meant to know,” Tina looks apologetic, “I couldn’t send ahead – but I found this little guy in the sewers and you’re the only person I could think of to – ”

She holds out the cat basket, biting her lip.

Newt leans down to peer curiously through its front panel – something inside lunges angrily at him. Newt, of course, looks delighted.

“Is that a – ”

“Chupacabra,” Tina nods, looking almost proud. “Male. Around three months old, I think, but he’s quite malnourished so – ”

“Merlin’s beard, what a handsome fellow,” Newt continues to peer into the cat basket, his smile growing, “you’re right, he’s a little small, but he seems in good spirits – ”

“Well, I’ve been feeding him up – ”

“Crickets?”

“And ground up earth worms, to supplement the – ”

“Goat’s blood?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent – very clever of you – ”

“Well I remember you saying how – ”

“The extra protein – ”

“And since he’s been separated from his mother so young – ”

“You’ve kept him warm?”

“Of course – ”

Theseus feels abruptly as if he’s intruding on something – Newt and this woman have disappeared into rather a different world than the one that he occupies.

Newt. And this woman. This woman who has softened so considerably in Newt’s presence that she looks like an entirely different person than the one he met in the Ministry lobby`; who has carried a strange and apparently aggressive orphaned creature in a cat basket all the way from Paris to ensure its safety; who is now discussing the correct ratios of crickets to goat’s blood for its nourishment; who is talking almost as fast as Newt is, as eagerly as he is, whilst Newt calls her creature a ‘handsome fellow’ and radiates pleasure of a sort Theseus has never seen him radiate in public before.

 “Oh dear Lord, there’s two of them,” Theseus pinches the bridge of his nose, and hears Leta giggling, her hands over her mouth. “Who is this woman?”

“He’s never mentioned her to you?” Leta squeezes his arm, “she’s the auror he met in New York. They’ve been writing to each other ever since he left.”

Theseus frowns. “Newt has a friend?”

“I think he has rather more than that, don’t you?”

Newt’s ears are pink and Tina’s eyes are bright, her awkward willowy frame suddenly less stiff, her expression unguarded, kind, warm – and Newt might actually be standing up straight for the first time in at least three years.

Theseus exchanges a glance with Leta.

“Newt!” He promptly steps forward, “would your friend and her – I’m sure perfectly legal – companion like to join you for lunch?”

Newt squints at him. “Are you asking Tina to lunch… for me?”

“Well since she’s come several hundred miles to bring you a Parisian sewer creature and you’ve been stood in this hallway for the last five minutes without so much as offering her a cup of tea…”

“Technically,” Newt informs him, “the chupacabra is native to Puerto Rico. If Miss Goldstein found it without its mother it was most likely stolen and trafficked to Europe. Would you like a cup of tea, Tina?”

“Yes,” Tina replies. “Do you guys have hot dogs? They don’t have them in France, it’s driving me crazy.”

“Probably not, but we might be able to rustle you up a sausage roll.”

+++

“He takes a half pint bottle of goat’s blood first thing in the morning,” Tina lays a notebook down on the table of the Ministry refectory, consulting a scrawl of hand-written bullet points, “and then ten crickets for lunch around midday – he likes ‘em small though, anything bigger than about an inch and he gets scared and won’t eat ‘em – and blood worms for dinner. He prefers to have those frozen in little cubes not just scattered everywhere, or else they get away from him.”

Newt is listening to her with a wondering expression on his face, his hands folded under his chin. When she’s finished, he leans down to peak into the cat basket on the floor by Tina’s ankles.

“Have you given him a name?”

Tina hesitates, biting her lip. “Elvis.”

Newt glances up at her again, unable to help a smile.

“He just kinda looks like one.” Tina’s shrug is only a little sheepish.

“Do you know, I think you’re right?”

The cat basket rattles as Elvis ardently protests his imprisonment. Tina leans down to tap the front of it pointedly. “You be nice to Mr Scamander. He’s gonna take good care of you. I wouldn’t leave you with just anyone, would I?”

Elvis chatters back at her, hotly, and Tina makes a gentle clicking sound in the back of her throat – the young chupacabra quietens immediately, gazing out at her.

“He seems very fond of you,” Newt observes, gently.

“Yeah well,” Tina shrugs, “when your general experiences of humans is either ‘the guy who ripped you away from your mom, shoved you in a crate and shipped you to France’, or ‘the girl who feeds you crickets and lets you teethe on her shoes’ the choice is pretty easy. You’ll do better by him than I can, though. You’ll make him a habitat and stuff, right? Better than some dingy French boarding house. You hear that, Elvis? Mr Scamander’s gonna get you a whole jungle to roam around. And all the shoes you can chew.”

Newt laughs, though he can see the genuine concern touching the edge of her expression, and reaches across the table to lay a hand on her wrist. “I’ll take the very best care of him that I can, Tina, you have my word.”

“I know.” Tina glances down, worrying at her lower lip with her teeth again. “Might miss the little guy some, though. Boarding house’s gonna be real quiet without him destroying the curtains in the middle of the night.”

“Well,” Newt smiles, tentatively, “you must come and visit him, then.”

Tina meets his gaze for a moment – he’s still holding onto her wrist. It’s more pleasant than it has any right to be. “That’d be nice.”

"There's also the distinct advantage of being able to meet somewhere where my brother and his fiance won't be able to stare at us for the entirety of our time together."

Across the refectory, Theseus abruptly finds something of deep interest in his sandwich - Leta, sipping from a mug of tea, doesn't bother to pretend that she has not, in fact, been taking a deep-seated interest in everything they're saying to each other, and waves at them. 

"That - would be nicer." Tina agrees, her ears growing hot. 

"Would you like to accompany Elvis to his new home?" Newt offers, after a moment. "You know him best, after all - you could help me set up his habitat to his satisfaction. If your work commitments allow for you to take another few hours, of course - "

"Yes," Tina answers before he can finish, not quite able to bite back her enthusiasm. "Yes - I mean - I'm gonna miss all of today anyway, might as well see this the whole way through, you know?"

"Very sensible of you," Newt agrees, with a quick, ineffable grin. "No point wasting more time sitting about, I can make you better sandwiches at home than they have here anyway."

Tina is already on her feet, gathering Elvis' cat basket up and holding it to her chest again. "Newt?"

"Yes?"

"What the hell is a sausage roll, anyway?"


End file.
